Two APSU Professors to Present at Annual Clarksville Writers Conference

Two members of the Austin Peay State University community will be featured presenters at this year’s Sixth Annual Clarksville Writers Conference, to be held July 28th-31st on the University campus.

Dr. Blas Falconer, associate professor of English, and Dr. Howard Winn, professor emeritus of history, will speak with attendees, offering encouragement and insights into the field of writing.

Falconer, the 2009 Maureen Egan Writers Exchange Award recipient, is the author of two collections of poetry, “The Perfect Hour” and “A Question of Gravity and Light.” Winn is the co-author of “A History of Austin Peay State University, 1806-2001” and “Clarksville Tennessee in the Civil War: A Chronology.”

This year’s conference, presented by the Clarksville-Montgomery County Arts and Heritage Development Council, opens with a new two-day tour centered on Clarksville’s rich architectural heritage. The buildings on the tour help tell the story of a community that began in the late 1700s as a river city, weathered the Civil War and later became a world center for the dark-fired tobacco trade.

Following the tour, award-winning songwriter and author Alice Randall will deliver this year’s keynote speech. Randall is the author of “Rebel Yell,” “Pushkin and the Queen of Spades” and “The Wind Done Gone,” the New York Times bestselling parody of Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind.”

Randall, a Harvard graduate and current Writer-In-Residence at Vanderbilt University, will speak at the conference banquet at the Clarksville Country Club on the evening of Friday, July 30th.

Other authors scheduled to speak at this year’s conference include:

• Darnell Arnoult, author of the Southern novel Sufficient Grace and the poetry collection What Travels With Us
• Beth Ann Fennelly, award-winning poet, nonfiction writer and author of Unmentionables, Tender Hooks and Open House
• Matthew Gavin Frank, poet, creative nonfiction writer and author of Sagittarius Agitprop and the forthcoming Sweat and Venom
• Tom Franklin, author of the award-winning short story collection Poachers and the novels Hell at the Breech and Smonk
• William Gay, Southern Gothic novelist, short story writer and author of Twilight, Provinces of Night and The Long Home
• Fenton Johnson, author of the novels Crossing the River and Scissors, Paper, Rock and the memoirs Geography of the Heart and Keeping Faith: A Skeptic’s Journey among Christian and Buddhist Monks
• Rheta Grimsley Johnson, journalist, syndicated columnist and author of the memoirs Poor Man’s Provence: Finding Myself in Cajun Louisiana and Enchanted Evening Barbie and the Second Coming
• John McDonald, playwright and founding artistic director of the Roxy Regional Theatre whose stage adaptations include Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray
• A. Scott Pearson, Vanderbilt University surgeon and author of the medical thriller Rupture, set in Memphis
• David James Poissant, award-winning short story writer and novelist whose work has appeared in Playboy and The Chicago Tribune, among others
• Chuck Sambuchino, editor of Guide to Literary Agents and Writer’s Digest Books’ Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript
• Robert Love Taylor, author of the Appalachian-flavored novel Blind Singer Joe’s Blues and The Lost Sister, winner of the Oklahoma book award
• Gordon Warnock, literary agent with Sacramento-based Andrea Hurst & Associates Literary Management
• Afaa Michael Weaver, poet, short story writer, translator and author of The Plum Flower Dance and Kama i’reeh (Like the Wind)

For more information, visit the conference’s website at www.artsandheritage.us/writers.